Beer/Cider Photo of the Week: Josh Pfriem and Christopher Barnes at Timmermans

Barrel rooms are hard rooms to shoot photos in. They’re large and dark. Also, the lighting is usually spotty and intense which leads to bright spots that can blow out part of the photo or tint the color in an overly yellow direction. So, you do what you can with photoshop without over tweaking it.

Sometimes you’re 8,000 miles away from home and see via social media that a friend so happens to be in the same play you are! On my recent trip to Belgium, I was heading into Brussels for a meeting with the Visit Flanders office when I noticed Josh Pfriem, owner and founder of pFriem Family Brewers, was drinking his way around Brussels. I arranged to meet him at Cantillon, which I needed to visit to add a few bottles to my cellar. Since I was heading north to Antwerp and he was heading north into The Netherlands, we decided to hang out for the day and have some beer fun in Belgium. The first order of business, lunch at the famouse 3 Fonteinen Cafe. Afterwards, I had a scheduled tour at Brouwerij Timmermans. Josh decided to tag along. Who wants to miss out on a chance to see on of Belgium’s oldest Lambic breweries?

Here we are after getting to try some three year old kriek lambic straight from the foeder. We went back for seconds! It’s great to see Timmermans returning to more traditional products. They’ve increased production of both their Oude Gueueze and their Oude Kriek in response to demand for more traditional options.

It’s a running joke for people who live in or near Portland that despite it being a sizable city, you’ll just randomly run into friends. It also extends to Portlanders overseas! Sometimes you just randomly run into a friend and make a day of it.